Experts say remains likely several hundred years old

A spooky find on Halloween eve in Connecticut, where a skeleton was discovered under a tree uprooted by Superstorm Sandy.

A homeless woman made the discovery Tuesday in an area called the Upper Green in New Haven, the New Haven Independent reported.

Visible among the roots of the giant oak tree, planted in 1909 on the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, is the back of an upside-down skull with its mouth still open. The skull is attached to a spine and rib cage.

The Green long ago served as a burial ground, and historian Robert Greenberg told the newspaper the bones could belong to one of many smallpox victims interred there in the 1700s.

Investigators with the state Medical Examiner's Office are now carefully removing the skeleton for proper burial, Hartford TV station WFSB reported.

"We're not going to let bodily remains end up in the public works chipper," New Haven police spokesman Officer Dave Hartman told the Independent.